"The UK's first "fibre town" could go online in the autumn, delivering speeds of about 100Mbps to consumers' homes. Fibre firm H20 provides super-fast broadband via the sewers and either Bournemouth, Northampton or Dundee will be offered the service first."

theres adsl2+ in the uk, but atm its a bit glitchy and not everywhere, otherwise everybody is on "best efforts" adsl max which is around 4-5mbps for most. fibre wont be around here till time tho tbh, im giving it at least 5 yrs till widespread availability (if all goes well)

Depends on where ya live. Good ole Capitalism at work as service providers duke it out in court to stake out their own area's. When one provider has a monopoly of an area they hold on to it using the legal system as long as they can. So called regulators are mostly in the pockets of big industry and can stretch it out for years. Bottom line, some consumers get stuck paying higher prices for less value in service. It is rampant with power companies,etc.